While snow emergencies — which suspend normal parking rules and impose mandatory, 24-hour alternate-side parking – usually land scores of cars in the pokey, APD holstered its hooks this time recognizing that many people are out of town for the holidays, Assistant Chief Brendan Cox said.

Rather than towing every car police and snow-removal crews find parked on the wrong side of the street (which is the odd-numbered side until 8 p.m. Friday), Cox said police tried to limit tows to only those vehicles that are truly impeding their work.

“Streets where they could get around those cars and still do their job and get things done, we used our discretion,” Cox said, noting that this week’s storm fell right between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

“We know there’s a lot of people out of town” and unable to move their cars, Cox said. “We’ve gotten some emails today from people who are like, “Hey, I’m out of the country. … We’re just trying to be cognizant of that.”

Cox also attributed the low number of tows to the fact that many of Albany’s college students, who often find their cars scooped up during the emergency declarations, are not in the city between semesters.

Still, Cox warned people not to assume that the city’s holiday forbearance means they can simply ignore the emergency parking regulations, which as of right now will be in effect until at least 8 p.m. Saturday. If police deem any individual car an impediment, it will still get the hook, he said.

“People should still move their cars,” Cox said, “because we can’t guarantee they’re not going to get their car towed.”

At 8 p.m. Friday, residents will be required to move their cars to the odd-numbered side of the street. For more information on the snow emergency regulations and a list of free off-street parking lots available to residents, visit the city’s website here.

4 Responses

This is bull. It’s winter. Snow, and a resulting emergency, is a distinct possibility. If you’re out of town for an extended period without your vehicle, then you make arangements for off-street parking or for someone to move it in the event of such an emergency. Three cars spent the night on the odd side of my street right in front of my home and now we have jagged frozen slush for much of that block. I, and my neighbors who DID obey the restrictions, should now have to park on that for several days because the car owners were too selfish to do the right thing in the first place?

I’ll have to remember the next time I get a parking ticket to argue that, per the city’s new precedent, the ticket should be excused because it was just too inconvenient for me to feed the meter, and hey, it’s not like I was blocking traffic.

I agree… this is total bull. Usually the police are ticketing and towing the students first because they’re the easiest to target. I also saw cars parked on the odd side of the street in my neighborhood, so there’s a bunch of snow that went unplowed that will just freeze over and remain. Then, a ton of state workers decided they deserve to park on the odd side because, hey! I come from out of town and don’t have to pay attention to the parking rules in effect. Doesn’t this city see this as an opportunity to make some money? Clean my streets and ticket these people already.

If you leave your vehicle on a city street during Winter time in Albany and travel out of the country you deserve to have it towed during a snow emergency and not get a break. Just plain dumb. I’m with you ReepDaggle.

What happens when you go out of town for a weekend and it snows and they issue you a ticket for $100?

A car you can park in a friends driveway or leave at the train station, or airport parking lot, but you may not be able to do anything about your sidewalk if you regularly shovel your sidewalk, and do not contract with someone to do that for you.

Someone should foil this at the end of the season and see how many politically connected get their tickets reduced while joe schmoe pays the piper.